Is it a transition though? I mean, if the ports can be most ports you need, it’s not really a transition. It’s compatible via a new cable with your existing stuff, or via an adapter. Other than this, which you know when you buy the machine, I’m not sure it’s forcing much… everything plus more works on a machine with usbc and tb. I’m not sure I get the angst. If you couldn’t use prior usb devices or ports which are no longer there, like Ethernet or hdmi or usb 2 or 3 stuff then I would agree. But you can.
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If Apple thought the future of ports is USB-C, why is Apple bringing back more types of ports?
- Thread starter Kung gu
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I'm not complaining. I wish everything was USB-C/Thunderbolt 3, 4/USB 4. But a large group of people continue to complain which is why Apple is backtracking.
I’m willing to ‘eat my hat’ if they do - but I really don’t see them actually doing it.
Back in the good old days, IBM could have decreed that thou shalt use this new port.
Today, unless the top half-a-dozen PC makers all moved together, they'd all be terrified that they'd drive "can't change/won't change" PC buyers to their competitors (who are all making nearly-interchangeable Windows boxes). In fact, the USB Implementer's Forum is, basically, those people, which probably explains why USB-C tries to be everything to everybody with... imperfect results.
Then... I haven't been following the DisplayPort vs. HDMI soap opera, but that has been an ongoing urinating contest between AMD, NVIDIA, Intel and others and, for many purposes, they are the "computer makers" (others just glue their chipsets together in various permutations and put them in nice boxes).
If you want to shout hurrah for the free market, then maybe the arms race between the two means we all get better products (just don't expect them to fit in the same plughole). Personally, I don't disagree that it would be great to get rid of one of DisplayPort or HDMI (whichever's losing the leapfrog game today) but I doubt it is going to happen. Reality is, DisplayPort is ingrained in the high-end computer display market (and is the main standard used internally in laptops and all in ones), HDMI in the TV market and I doubt that either will go away soon... and, just to really tie things up, most USB-C to HDMI cables work using DisplayPort...
To be clear, I didn't say they *wouldn't* remove USB-C ports. I said they *shouldn't*.
To be fair, I *think* that every time I've used all four of my USB-C ports, at least one of them was for a monitor, and that I also provided power via the same port, so built-in HDMI and Magsafe would ostensibly eliminate my need for four ports. That said, the fact that I've had all four ports in use on so many occasions makes me hesitant to commit to that.
Let's be clear. Dropping MagSafe 2 and the HDMI port were probably two of the dumbest mistakes in Apple's design history, ranking right up there with using only a single screw to hold the Wallstreet PowerBook's hard drive in place.
MagSafe 2 was a huge selling point because it meant your laptop had a much lower risk of getting broken. Quite literally all of my USB-C ports are thoroughly loose at this point because of the sheer number of power cord tugs that have occurred over four years, and I doubt I'm alone in that. At least they all still work, at least for now. Also, it turns out that third-party cables grip better, so if they get too loose, that's always an option except when using Apple's Thunderbolt adapters (and there's always gaff tape for that).
HDMI is the single universal standard for connecting a computer to a monitor. There was never any chance of Thunderbolt taking off as a replacement, because HDMI is ubiquitous and much, much cheaper, nor was there ever any chance of every hotel TV set getting replaced with something that contained an internal USB-C to HDMI adapter. Trying to dump HDMI means convincing the world to replace at least TWO BILLION TV sets, plus who knows how many computer monitors, projectors, etc. You'd have to be a complete fool to believe that such a transition could occur in under two decades, yet Apple dropped the port, thinking that somehow it would magically happen overnight.
The only conclusion I can come to is that in 2015, none of Apple's hardware engineering managers had ever used an Apple laptop in any environment other than on a desk at work — no watching Netflix in a hotel, no working on the bed or on a tray table in the living room, no environments where HDMI is necessary or MagSafe is critical. Being so thoroughly distanced from their target market resulted in utterly baffling decisions — the touch bar, the butterfly keyboard scandal, the lack of HDMI, the removal of MagSafe 2, etc.
The removal of SD card slots was really annoying, too, even if Apple's SD card slot implementation did suck (UHS-I only, and capped at USB 2.0 speeds).
At least the removal of USB-A ports falls under the category of hubris/overestimating their market power. The rest of their design decisions border on insanity. I really can't imagine what they were thinking.
...and, as of today, we still don't know that they *have* - just a stolen schematic that appears to show 3xUSB-C plus magsafe, HDMI & SD which conclusively proves that... well, unless it's a total fake, it proves that Apple once drew a schematic showing 3xUSB-C plus magsafe, HDMI & SD... Maybe it is the new MBP, maybe it's a rejected prototype, maybe it is a total fake, maybe there are a few details missing (TB3-over-Magsafe?). Too soon to start the victory (or defeat) dance...
We don't even know what the 3rd USB-C is - if 1 port per controller is the new standard, 2 TB4 ports would give the new MBP the same TB bandwidth as the previous 4 port model - accessible via daisy-chaining or the new TB4/USB4 hub tech (rare and expensive now - you know, a bit like USB-C/TB3 stuff in 2016). 3 full TB4 ports would be a 50% increase in bandwidth. So the question comes down to - do you need 4 TB ports on the road - because, at your desk, you can now have 6-12 by adding hubs (with only 1-3 cables to plug in).
Even if that MBP config does appear, we won't know the cause and effect - if the new policy is 1-port-per-controller then the number of TB3 ports will be capped by how many controllers they can fit on the M1x/M2/whatever. All those HDMI/SD/Magsafe ports could be implemented with significantly less resources than a single full-featured TB4 port. The design trade off is likely to be somewhat more involved than "add 1xHDMI = remove 1xUSB-C".
Simple. "Smaller, thinner, lighter! Form over function!"
It's not as if the only thing some people hated about the 2016 MBPs was that it didn't have Magsafe/HDMI/SD. Two major reliability failures (flexgate, butterfly keyboard) plus complaints about thermals, noise, battery capacity... not to mention a price hike starts to look like carelessness.
I think the real clue is that in 2015, Tim Cook stood up on stage, waved an iPad Pro and asked "Why would you buy a PC anymore?" without stopping to think how that might also reflect on laptop/desktop Macs. I think the industry had decided that mobile was the future, and that the way to sell laptops was to make them more and more like tablets and phones (except, maybe, the reason why people might still buy a laptop was because it wasn't like a tablet?) - a lot of the 2016 design decisions make sense in this light:
Size/weight (and consequences involving battery, thermals): obvious
Butterfly Keyboard: see size/weight - particularly thickness.
Touchbar: ...how can you add some mobile-like touchscreen features without completely re-designing MacOS to make it touch-friendly?
All-USB-C: the whole USB-C concept was driven by tablets and phones, where there isn't space for any of the standard ports, or more than one or two of anything - so a universal port is helpful and dongles were already de rigeur for iDevices. The one unequivocal advantage of USB-C is that it saves space - in particular it reduces the length of the areas where the logic board needs to reach the edge of the case and/or the need for daughter-boards to mount extra connectors. And once you go for TB3, "port rationing" happens because of the resources needed to implement each "universal" port (esp. on a laptop chipset with limited PCIe).